BEFORE I STARTED WRITING THIS BOOK, I PITCHED TO MY PUBLISHER THE IDEA OF VISITING ASIA WITH A PHOTOGRAPHER TO TAKE SCENIC SHOTS OF ASIAN COUNTRIES, ASIAN FOOD, AND—BECAUSE THE PHOTOGRAPHER WAS A FRIEND OF MINE—JUST GO BONKERS THROUGHOUT ASIA, ALL IN SERVICE OF THE BOOK.
Part of that plan was something I’ve obsessed about for almost a decade: the Tai Lei Loi Kei Macanese pork chop sandwich. This pork chop sandwich is pretty simple, but what’s not so simple is the sandwich’s backstory, or the rules of the place that sells it. Since I first heard about both, I have been fascinated with them and carried the regret of not trying this legendary sammie almost a decade ago.
The island country of Macau, a former Portuguese colony that is now under the control of the People’s Republic of China, is famous for its fusion of Chinese and Portuguese culture, including the famous Portuguese egg tart (aka natas aka po tat), some of the most lavish casinos, and an unabashed celebration of high-stakes gambling and high-end shopping. But all I cared about on my visit to the Macanese island of Taipa was the little stand that produced 300 bone-in pork chop sandwiches served on a sweet roll. People lined up all morning for this sandwich, and if you were number 301, you were out of luck, no two ways about it.
After first hearing about the Tai Lei Loi Kei pork chop stand in 2005, I KNEW I had to visit Taipa to try the sandwich. But, did I go right away? NOPE, because I wasn’t as annoying as I am now. That is, not yet annoying enough to persuade Thi when we were in Hong Kong to wake up early enough to take a ferry over to Macau and hop in a cab for the drive to Taipa, just to wait in a line for the outside shot of getting two of these coveted pork chop sandwiches. Serves me right for being considerate.
Thi and I went to Hong Kong in late 2007 to announce our engagement and attend the weddings of two cousins. No time for Macau. Early the next year, I returned to Hong Kong on business, which didn’t leave me any time to visit Macau. We started Starry Kitchen in 2009, which meant the poorhouse for many more years than most restaurateurs should have to endure. But through all this, I still couldn’t stop thinking about that sandwich.
So when I persuaded my publisher that I had to go to Asia, I made sure to leave enough time to squeeze in an overnight trip to Macau to finally eat that motherfucking pork chop sandwich.
But to understand me is to understand that I’m overzealous and unreasonably ambitious beyond any logic or reason. (One can dream, right?!) I scheduled nine countries in fewer than three weeks. Though Macau was a focus of the trip, I could make it work only if I first visited three countries in two days—without sleeping. I flew sixteen hours to Shanghai for a seven-hour layover so I could be drenched in the downpour of China just to see the futuristic neon lights of the city. Then I took a two-hour flight to Singapore for another layover, this time a ten-hour one, just so I could hit some hawker stands in the muggy heat of Southeast Asia to comfort my craving for powerful and mouthwatering flavors. After getting drenched and sweating through my T-shirt, I devolved into a stinky walking cesspool (it was so bad that a flight attendant on the plane actually took an aerosol can of air freshener and sprayed down the cabin five rows behind me and directly onto my feet) and THEN I drearily, finally flew into the island city of Taipa two days after leaving the States.
Waiting for my bus outside the Macau airport, I realized I needed to get going or I was going to drop. I figured it was time to take a cheap taxi two miles down the road. That seemed like the smartest, uncheapest decision I had made in a while. But none of the cab drivers knew how to find my Airbnb rental. Even though addresses were written in Portuguese, the cabbies only knew the Cantonese names. Since the extent of my Cantonese was “This tastes good” and “I don’t speak Cantonese,” directing cabbies around Taipa wasn’t going to happen. Finally I found a cabbie who tolerated my lack of Cantonese enough to take me where I needed to go. So things were at last looking up. HUZZAH!
Now, before I continue I should mention that being a road warrior is not foreign to me. I LOVE the chaos and excitement of travel.
That said, one of my biggest pet peeves about traveling is cabbies trying to rip me off. And this cabbie hit my button immediately. I’m still mad at that guy! When we reached my destination, he started cursing me in Cantonese. And then I started yelling at him in English and my limited Cantonese, telling him how much I was going to pay him regardless of how much he wanted to charge me. As I was yelling at him, I could feel him letting his foot off of the brake. He was about to peel out and take me god-knows-where. I grabbed my bags, and as quickly as I got out of the cab, a lady jumped in, and the cabbie was already on his way. That’s when I realized that I had left one of my phones in the back of the cab—the one with all the information I needed for the rest of my trip.
I was so mad! I was so livid! I was so screwed. I tried the public phones in the hotel near my Airbnb, but they were all disconnected. Fortunately, the hotel managers were incredibly gracious, especially considering that I wasn’t even staying there. They got me a glass of water, set me up on their Wi-Fi, and left me alone as I tried every app known in the iCloud to track down, beep, whatever I could to get my phone back. I couldn’t believe it. This was the first true night of my trip, and it couldn’t have started off worse. I was exhausted, probably stranded, and at a total loss.
But, as I slowly started to calm down, a simple realization hit me: I thrive in chaos. This is what I had forgotten about myself. And this is what I realize about myself now. This is how Starry Kitchen survived through all the turmoil. This is one of the few intangible skills that is hard as hell to articulate but easy as anything for me to put into action: functioning in chaos. Against ALL odds and especially when I’m fucked, I get shit done. I don’t cave in; I don’t wallow; and I simply don’t give a fuck about what normal logic tells me I can’t make happen.
This idea was always in front of me and I finally grabbed it and finally owned it. This is who I am. It permeates my soul. Sitting there without my phone and facing the chaos before me, I became one . . . with me.
I went to my Airbnb, restored all my backed-up info to my other phone, which I use primarily for pictures, and then set out on foot to find my pork chop sandwich.
With my broken Cantonese, I searched for two long hours and asked a few local police officers about the highly elusive chi pa bao. At first they dismissed me, but of course through my sheer persistence (aka I just stared at them stupidly and mimicked eating a pork chop sandwich), they figured out what I wanted and pointed out the place four doors away.
Tai Lei Loi Kei has become so legendary that the business has expanded throughout Macau, Singapore, and other Asian regions. The flagship, while still near its original spot, has expanded into a beautifully yellow building that accommodates hungry customers all day. So much for having to be one of the lucky 300. But I didn’t care. My trip wasn’t just about that. I walked over, took selfies in front of the place, knowing full well that all this chaos and turmoil would be worth it if it opened in a few hours before I left the country. I returned to my Airbnb to sleep for three hours before I satisfied my unconditional love for a pork chop sandwich with an open bun and a juicy chop ready for my consumption and a mouthful of lovin’.
I woke up, packed up so that I was ready to leave just in case I came back very late from my sandwich excursion, and set off for my pork chop sammie of a lifetime. I got there at 7:30 A.M. No one was there yet. Five minutes later, this sweet old lady walked in, and like a crazy stalker I slipped in behind her and interrogated her with my broken Cantonese about when the place would open. 8:00 A.M.!
So I sat in front of the building. Watched the bread get delivered. Watched kids go to school. Watched buses take locals to work. Avoided a street cleaner and marveled about traversing an ocean, using two different phones, trekking through three countries for THIS sandwich—an adventure never to be replicated by anyone else again, including me.
When 8 A.M. finally rolled around, I casually walked in and sat down like I was a local there for my daily coffee, soccer match, and pork chop sandwich. I ordered two—one to savor and make love to with my mouth right then and there, and one to take with me on the road. Then I heard a microwave turn on. But it simply didn’t matter anymore. I was there! Five minutes later, they were in my hands. That first bite of a moist sweet roll paired with tender pork marinated in five-spice and other seasoning overcame my tired soul and rejuvenated me . . . and then I knew that the next three weeks were going to be full of chaotic greatness.
I scarfed that pork chop sandwich down. Devoured it. Mouth-gasmed to it to the nth degree. I was more than happy. I was on a different plane of enlightenment, not only because it was delicious and entirely worth the effort, but also because I never gave up on it, not once after ten years of obsessing over it, and when I finally got to taste it, I also got to celebrate and acknowledge in full the chaotic order I live in with Starry Kitchen—all of its crazy successes and even crazier adventures. Everything flooded through my mouth into my being.
All that from a Macanese pork chop sandwich . . .
